"the reports from the beginning of the war stated otherwise" Not the ones I read. "It makes no sense to mobilize soldiers during the war and not send them to

"the reports from the beginning of the war stated otherwise" Not the ones I read. "It makes no sense to mobilize soldiers during the war and not send them to war." They can guard other borders (russia has lots of them) and replace the professional soldiers there, who then can be send instead to Ukraine. And 140 000 of those 300 000 you cite seem to be Ukrainians. And they do have to fight indeed. But russia really avoided forcefully drafting ethnic russians and sending them into the war zone - the few times it did - it created too much unrest.